I am 46, spouse 44. We make 700k/yr total salary. 2 kids, one off to college and one in 9th grade. I have investments that will take care of college. Here’s my NW: 4.5M - primary home: 1M/paid, 2 investment homes: total 800K/paid and generate 6K cash/month, stocks/bonds/cash: 1M, 401k/Roth: 1.25M, corpus for kids’ college: 500K (not included in NW). I ‘feel’ like I can retire now; and wife after few years (her salary is 300K) but it is very hard letting go to a steady pay check.

I would recommend against retiring while your wife is working. That can cause a lot of strain in a marriage. Just retire together. :)

What are your total annual expenditures? Are you including everything (healthcare, taxes, home maintenance, infrequent expenditures)?

Have you considered selling the rentals to augment your portfolio? It would probably allow about the same withdrawals with reduced risk.

How much are you saving every year? How long would it take you to add some extra safety? How do you feel about your job?

Why are you asking a group of randos online instead of consulting with a financial planning expert?

Just curious, are you planning to learn English after you 'let go to a steady pay check'?

You're literally whining about being rich, dude. You don't have any real problems.

What is your plan for health insurance? I think that is the only reason I’d hesitate, otherwise life is short and nothing is promised.

It's tempting to retire early, especially with a paid-off home and substantial assets. However, given that you are in your prime earning years and planning for a retirement that could easily span 40+ years, I believe pulling the trigger now is quite risky and could lead to unnecessary financial strain down the road.
Here are the key financial risks that the current structure of your net worth presents:
1. The Long Retirement Horizon & Sequence of Returns Risk (SORR)
• The conventional 4% Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR) is typically designed for a 30-year retirement. A retirement starting at age 46 needs to last until age 90, 95, or even 100, meaning a safe withdrawal rate is likely closer to 3.0% - 3.5%.
• With a $4.05M-to-$4.5M portfolio, a 3.5% SWR generates only $141,750 - $157,500 annually. This number includes the non-real estate assets that are actually used to fund daily expenses (stocks/bonds/401k).
• The single biggest risk to an early retiree is Sequence of Returns Risk (SORR): a significant market downturn in the first 5-10 years of retirement. When you are forced to sell assets at a loss to cover living expenses, you permanently deplete the principal, making a full recovery much harder. Your peak earning years are your best defense against this risk.
2. Liquidity and the Real Estate Burden
• You have $1.8M (or ~40%) of your net worth locked in non-liquid real estate. While the $6K/month net cash flow is great, your liquid, withdrawal-ready portfolio is closer to $2.25M ($1M Stocks/Cash + $1.25M 401k/Roth).
• The Big Risk: Investment properties require major capital expenditures (CapEx): a new roof, HVAC replacement, significant renovations, or a tenant turnover/vacancy period. These are large, unpredictable outflows that could easily chew up $30,000 - $50,000+ in a single year.
• If this CapEx occurs during a market downturn, you would be forced to pull from your depleted stock/bond accounts at the worst possible time, magnifying the SORR impact.
Recommendation for Risk Mitigation:
I believe you should leverage your current high-earning capacity to aggressively de-risk your retirement plan by continuing to work for a few more years until one of the following milestones is met:
1. $4.5M in Liquid Investments (Stocks/Bonds/Retirement): Reaching this target ensures your primary home and investment properties are truly "extra" assets, and your investment portfolio alone is robust enough to generate sufficient income using a more conservative SWR (3.5% or lower).
2. Net Rental Income of over $10,000/month: This higher threshold provides a much thicker cash flow buffer, fully insulating your investment portfolio from daily expenses and property CapEx risks. You could create a dedicated property reserve account from the excess cash flow.

We had a similar scenario. My wife and I had a combined income of ~$400K 15 years ago when she stopped working to be a stay at home Mom, which was the most important and hardest job of the two of us at the time. We hardly missed her 6 figure income after being bumped into a lower tax bracket and not having alt-min tax added. We also paid off our mortgage before she left her work. After I stopped working in 2022 (layoff), we converted our rentals to vacation rentals and now actively manage those as our primary income. It was an adjustment at first living with lower income than before, but having all of the write offs finally made us realize how little of our W2 income we were keeping after taxes. Currently enrolled in a healthcare sharing ministry with high deductible (Medishare) for health coverage. Good luck!

Hey there,

Much respect for sharing.

The way I see it is don’t get too bogged down with financial planning, efficiency and the ‘done thing’.
You have clearly worked your backside off and it’s frankly inspirational.
Now prioritise your happiness. It’s not just a cliché, life truly is fleeting and precious. We have all been conditioned into believing that we need to maintain the nine to five lifestyle to get by. Honestly, to heck with that. Go with your gut, treat yourself.
Walk the path of gratitude with faith and a friendly smile. Anything else is a huge bonus.
If you lost it all tomorrow, would your kids still want to spend time with you? If so, you win at life, friend.
Peace and love to all Xx

I wouldn’t assume rental income has less risk than market investments. Prob depends on the type of properties, but my rentals are far more consistent than anything else. It always seems weird to me when people say they Fired while their spouse is still working. Under that logic my spouse fired under 40…. But not sure they need to retire at the same time. Many households have one spouse working.

I would suggest you have a conversation with your certified financial advisor and pose the same questions!

What are your expenses? Based on your income level and savings, unless you or your wife recently got big raises, I’m skeptical your assets can cover your expenses yet. You certainly could retire, but you’d likely need to be prepared for some meaningful lifestyle changes.

Maybe you can scale down your job somehow, for example by negotiating 7h a day, 4 days a week or starting a chill career as a coach, advisor, or parttime chef, fitness trainer, financial advisor or whatever, as long as that is your thing.

Working does not has to be binary (0 or 1), can be 0.5 or 0.33 too.

Is your wife okay with working while you're retired? Why not work an extra year so you can both retire at the same time?

Once you announce to the world you are retired your whole life changes. You no longer have the available credit you use to have because you no longer have the income. At your age if you still have your health you still have a long way to go. You may find you can only buy things for cash. Retirement has a stigma on it. If I were you I would just take some time off and see if you like it you may find you getting board after a while. I would start an LLC and say your self employed even if it is not making any money you have the potential and if you want to get back in to the working world you have a much easier in than saying I am coming out of retirement, which usually means to most people you need the money retirement did not work out.

You could retire at any time with a 4.5 million dollar primary home. Sell that buy a more modest home for you and your wife live out in the country and live off the interest. The problem is you probably like the lavish life style and want to keep it and that being the case I'd recommend you just keep working and keep generating that retirement fund. Personally, I would retire and downsize... then just live a very modest life and live off the interest and the money the other 2 homes make. That's just me I don't need to show a lavish life style to everyone and I just want to live out my life doing my hobbies with no pressures of work or other problems of life. Life is to short to be working your whole life when you could be enjoying the freedom to do whatever you like.

”Feel” is not the level of comfort I would want before stepping away from a $400k job. You need a good conservative estimate of your current spending levels. Tracking six months is minimum a year is better. You can then compare that to your income available after retirement. I would suggest comparing both with and without your wife’s income. If income meets or exceeds requirements you can retire with some comfort that you can quit working and maintain standard of living

It sounds like you have rich people problems. Best if you talk to a financial advisor and not a bunch of poor people.

You and your wife have done very well. The way I think about retirement is I can always unretire if I don't like it.

How should I decide? I know between the rental income and investments, we can live nicely till 401K kicks in and which will then take us nicely till social security and medicare kick in. We will leave the investment homes to kids and so can also sell our primary home later down the line and move to a smaller living space. We want to travel more and dont splurge on unnecessary material things. We live in Dallas

You have 6k a month income without touching your investments and paid off house, and money set aside for kids college. You can both retire on that alone. That’s over 3k each a month to spend on whatever. If you need to pull 2% from your cash portfolio you can easily do that if you want to spend a bit more and it will still continue to grow at 8-10%. And you still have substantial other investments. Healthcare is based on the salary you pull in (not your NW) depending on what state you live in, I was worried about it to too, but I’m paying virtually nothing. Don’t let healthcare be the reason you don’t retire. You have more than enough to retire comfortably.

Please don't retire now. Because, things might not be the same after early retirement. But mentally, financially and maritally.